“The poverty figures go back to 2010. We’re now in the middle of 2014, so that’s quite frustrating,” says Keiko Osaki-Tomita, chief of the demographic and social statistics branch of the UN’s Statistics Division.

But she does not believe that outdated statistics hamper progress towards meeting the goals, because they show the general direction the figures are moving from year to year.

“We can see which way the trend is going, and that’s important,” she says.

“Capturing population size is very important, as it is often the basis for other estimates. We need this baseline data.”

Keiko Osaki-Tomita, UN’s Statistics Division

The annual Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) report is compiled using statistics from agencies including UNICEF (the UN Children’s Fund) and the World Bank. They are used to track progress towards the MDGs, which were set back in 2000 and whose deadline is the end of 2015. The report itself acknowledges that some statistics date back to 2012 or 2013.

“We wanted to show the most recent picture, but couldn’t get the latest information,” Osaki-Tomita says. “However, the World Bank is going to revise its poverty figures this summer.”

She says that outdated or missing figures are an ongoing problem, and that often it is the most basic kind of data that are missing.

“We don’t know exactly how many babies are being born. Or the reasons behind why some people are dying,” Osaki-Tomita says. “Capturing population size is very important, as it is often the basis for other estimates. We need this baseline data.”

Despite national statistics offices in developing countries often having limited capacity to collect and produce statistics, they produced more statistics than ever before for the latest report, she says.

However, she adds they will struggle to cope with increased data demands that will arise after 2015, with the new post-2015 development agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals.

All the data in the report come from national statistics offices figures, though Osaki-Tomita says this could change in future.

“Many countries and organisations are starting to use private data, such as Gallup polls,” she says. “They are small samples, so can be analysed quickly. Whether they can replace official data remains to be seen. In my view, national statistics offices should be the fundamental source.”

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